RIYADH, 6 February 2006 — On instructions from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, the Iraqi conjoined twins, Fatima and Zahra, were brought to Riyadh yesterday by air ambulance.
King Abdullah has ordered the separation of the twins at his own expense. The twins were accompanied by their father Haider Saleh and mother Majda Rashed, and an Iraqi pediatrician.
Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeea, chief executive officer of the National Guard Health Affairs and chief surgeon, said the twins weighed 3.4 kilograms.
“They are joined at the chest, abdomen and pelvis. They have one leg each and it is still too early to say anything about shared internal organs. We will learn these things in the next few weeks,” Al-Rabeea told Arab News.
The twins were born in Fatima Al-Zahraa Hospital in Baghdad’s Sadr City on Jan. 25.
Conjoined twins are a delicate medical question anywhere in the world and their survival is rarely certain. But for these two babies, born into an impoverished family in war-torn Iraq, the odds were almost insurmountable.
The twins’ father Saleh, 25, works on a farm and earns a small monthly salary. “They were born to poor parents who cannot afford surgery of this nature,” the Iraqi pediatrician accompanying the babies said.
Saudi assistance came after their 20-year-old mother, Majda, made an appeal on TV.
Both the twins and their parents have been accommodated in a luxury suite at King Abdul Aziz Medical City where the operation will be held.
Since 1990, a number of surgeries to separate conjoined twins have been performed in the Kingdom. Three pairs were from the Kingdom, two each from Sudan and Egypt and one each from Malaysia, the Philippines and Poland.
